DORAL, FLORIDA | There stood 12 men, wearing shorts (except for Patrick Reed who wore long pants) and patient smiles, standing together in the Ivanka Trump Ballroom inside the Trump National Doral clubhouse, awaiting a group photo of the LIV players who will tee it up in the Masters next week.
“Where’s Tyrrell?” someone asked, noticing that the 13th Masters qualifier – Tyrrell Hatton – was missing.
About that time, Hatton appeared from around a corner, carrying what appeared to be an iced coffee and apologizing for being tardy because he was tied up in an interview.
After the first batch of photographs, the group was culled, leaving six Masters champions – Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Charl Schwartzel, Patrick Reed, Sergio García and Phil Mickelson – for a winners-only session.
There were no green jackets, but Mickelson was wearing a light green golf shirt.
When the photo session broke up, the Masters felt a little bit closer.
The LIV Golf event at Doral begins Friday, the fifth event of the season, but like the PGA Tour event in San Antonio this week, the Masters looms large.
There was a time, not that many years ago, when the PGA Tour rolled through Doral in March and it felt like one of the last big preps before the Masters. It’s that way again, at least for LIV players who filled the top of the leaderboard at Augusta last April.
“This is a great place to get ready for Augusta,” Mickelson said.
Counting defending champion Rahm, who made the jump to LIV in December, the third-year tour can claim four of the top six finishers in the 2023 Masters. Mickelson and Brooks Koepka finished second behind Rahm while Reed tied for fourth with PGA Tour players Russell Henley and Jordan Spieth.
LIV Golf signage was aplenty overlooking Club 54 at Trump National Doral.
It was viewed by many as a victory for LIV, validating the quality of play which some have derided as looking and feeling more like exhibition golf with its 54-hole format. That argument collapsed at Augusta.
“I already knew that,” said Koepka, who held the 54-hole lead last year. “I kept telling everybody, but nobody believed me. I think it was more validation for everybody else.”
Because of the game’s fractured state, the four major championships feel more important than before because they are the few times when all of the game’s best players are together. The Masters, because it’s the first major of the year and because of all that comes with it, feels enormous.
For the players, the Masters is more personal than it is a battle of LIV against the PGA Tour. The LIV team flags go down, but there will inevitably be a comparison of how the players on each side performed.
If the Masters temporarily blurs the dividing line running through professional golf, a long-term solution to the PGA Tour-LIV standoff seems no closer than it has been.
Asked Wednesday morning how he thought LIV players will fare next week, Rahm offered a hopeful response.
“That is a very hard question to answer. But you know, there [are] quite a few major champions in LIV, and there are a few that are major-champion-quality golfers. So just pure numbers, if you go with math, wouldn’t be the highest, but I’m confident that one of us can get it done this year.”
If the Masters temporarily blurs the dividing line running through professional golf, a long-term solution to the PGA Tour-LIV standoff seems no closer than it has been. That’s not to say there won’t be a mutually agreeable resolution down the line, but it does not seem imminent.
“Right now, we are in the disruption phase, so we are in the middle of the process, and when it’s all said and done, it’s going to be a lot brighter,” Mickelson said. “But while we go through it, it’s challenging. But we’ll get there.”
The recent Bahamas meeting among the PGA Tour leaders and players with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund that bankrolls LIV Golf, may not have moved the sides any closer to an agreement than before, according to some with knowledge of the meeting.
Asked to respond to recent remarks by Rory McIlroy that the current state of professional golf is not sustainable, Rahm agreed.
“Every time I get asked a question like this, I say the same thing. I think there’s room for both. It’s as simple as that,” Rahm said.
“I think we have the opportunity to end up with an even better product for the spectators and the fans of the game. A little bit more variety doesn’t really hurt anybody. I think properly done, we can end up with a much better product that can take golf to the next level worldwide, and I’m hoping that’s what ends up happening.”
While LIV has sold itself as an alternative to the traditional golf tournament structure – selling sizzle more than tradition – it is still struggling to find traction in the U.S.
“I feel like the players, we are just here and we need to make birdies to make everything better. It’s up to other people to come into an agreement …” – Joaquín Niemann
Players and leaders on both sides talk about the importance of appealing to fans, especially after months of talking about money on both sides. If there is an acceptable middle ground, it has not been publicly identified yet.
“I feel like the players, we are just here and we need to make birdies to make everything better,” Joaquín Niemann said.
“It’s up to other people to come into an agreement and know what is going to be the best for the game and have all of those guys working in the same direction and not thinking against each other.”
To which Bryson DeChambeau quickly added: “And it needs to happen fast. It’s not a two-year thing. Like, it needs to happen quicker rather than later, just for the good of the sport. Too many people are losing interest.”
The Masters may fix that, if only for one week.